American Pie Presents: Beta House (Unrated) DVD Review

Yet more pie? Enough already!

The third film in the American Pie Presents direct-to-DVD series and the sixth overall to carry the American Pie franchise title, American Pie Present: Beta House is not unlike its predecessors. Which is not to say that it is a bad thing. With each of the first three films grossing over $100 million in box office receipts (not counting DVD sales), it's safe to say that the various producers, directors and writers of this franchise have pretty much found a winning formula and are sticking to it. While the franchise's theatrical run ended with 2003's American Wedding, the franchise continued on with a brand new direct-to-DVD series that has proven to be a big hit as well. So much so that there are now three such movies in this series, proving the resilience of the American Pie brand name.

While all the original cast members from the movies (with the sole exception of Eugene Levy) have jumped ship to other projects, American Pie Presents is able to continue its debauched saga with the focus now solely on the Stifler family. The infamous Steve Stifler character (played to the hilt by Seann William Scott in the first three movies) may be gone as well but the Stifler family name proves too hard to put down. The first American Pie Presents movie, Band Camp, looked toward Matt Stifler (Tad Hilgenbrink), Steve's younger brother, to provide the laughs, while the second movie, The Naked Mile, centered on the unusual awkwardness of another Stifler, Erik (John While), who has to live up to the family name.

This latest movie, Beta House, is a continuation of Erik's sexual (mis)adventures, this time as an incoming college freshman. Together with his best pal, Cooze (Jake Siegel) and new roommate Bobby (Nic Nac), Erik is shown the ropes around campus by none other than his own kin, the legendary Dwight Stifler (Steve Talley), another holdover character from The Naked Mile. Dwight is a member of Beta House, one of the most notorious fraternities on campus that has a reputation of throwing the wildest parties. On the other end of the spectrum is Beta House's rival, the GEEK fraternity, made up of filthy rich, geeky kids who live it up (so to speak) in a palatial frat house, complete with proud display cases full of Star Trek and other sci-fi memorabilia.

To keep a connection to the last movie, we are told that Erik and Tracy (Jessy Schram), his girlfriend from that movie, are no longer together. Now free to date whomever he wants, Erik becomes attracted to the beautiful Ashley (Meghan Heffern), whom he meets under embarrassing circumstances (is there any other kind in this movie?) in their dorm's co-ed bathroom. As expected, Erik, Cooze, Bobby and a few other freshmen then decide to pledge Beta House and as a group, is required to complete a list of fifty wild tasks by semester's end.

Story-wise, Beta House is shaped almost exactly like its predecessors, devoid of anything remotely semi-compelling or even noteworthy. Like most movies in the teen sex comedy genre that take their cue from classics like Animal House, Beta House is just another blatant excuse to show off plenty of skin and also showcase some of that cringe-worthy lewd and juvenile behavior that have become American Pie staples. Not that there is anything wrong with that (how Seinfeld-ian!). This DVD is listed as "Unrated" and as far as the ratings go, there is plenty of nudity on show here to fill up the T&A quota for another American Pie movie.

Like The Naked Mile, moving the entirety of this film to a college campus setting provides plenty of chances for the writers to just be lazy and write in some of the usual college-type shenanigans--you know, things like fraternity hazing. Fortunately, the writers did not go overboard with this part of the story and luckily, the movie spent just the right amount of time on this subject without turning it into a boring tutorial for Hazing 101.

While the rivalry with the GEEK fraternity was alluded to at the start of the movie, the antagonism between both fraternities was not fully played up in the middle act to warrant the big finale that we see. Which is a shame because I kind of enjoyed the ending but never got the sense of how much hate these two houses had for one another before it happened.

To tell you the truth, I went into this movie expecting the worst but came out of it with more than a few laughs. As with the previous editions of American Pie Presents, Beta House is cut from the same cloth and as long as you jigger your expectations appropriately, there are some good times to be had.